Getting It Right
by morvamp
Summary: Klaus has been defeated and Elena died in the process. When she reawakens as a vampire and remembers a certain memory, she finally realizes her need for the darker brother. Unfortunately, he doesn't exactly welcome her with open arms.


**I've had the dialogue written for this story for a few months now, but just recently found the urge to add everything else around the skeleton.**

**I've experienced a lot of disappointment regarding the show this season, so this is sort of my therapy. This is my way of getting out some form of what I want to eventually happen, even though it appears I will be waiting a century. I know there are a lot of you that feel exactly the same way I do, so I hope you enjoy my little one-shot where Damon finally gets the girl.**

* * *

Damon heard the door open and the soft footsteps that followed. Despite the lack of her heartbeat that no longer sounded in his eardrums, he still knew exactly who it was. Even in her new life, he'd always be able to sense her.

"Part of me expected you here hours ago," Damon announced. He refused to look at her as Elena stepped into the parlor. Instead he kept his attention focused solely on the roaring fireplace as he brought his scotch to his lips and took another swig.

Elena lingered around the entryway as she pried, "And the other part?"

"Figured you'd be ringing in your new life with St. Stefan of course." Damon raised his half empty glass into the air as he shook it back and forth as a mock form of congratulations.

"I was actually just with him…" She'd been with him for the past two hours. At first Stefan had helped her cope with the notion that she had just drank from a human. Thankfully, he had stopped her before she drained the body completely dry. He had eased her guilt at being able to so easily execute the act before the memory had flooded back. The very memory she had come here to confront.

Damon rolled his eyes despite the fact that Elena couldn't see the movement and sarcastically noted, "I'm sure he's just beside himself right now."

"Actually he is, but not for the reason you think." She paused before she added, "I broke up with him, Damon."

Truthfully, he had always known, or was it hoped, that the two would meet their inevitable end. And a smirk lifted the edge of his lip as he considered the irony behind it finally happening at the start of her rebirth. She had chosen the moment when all of their obstacles had dissipated to finally pull the plug.

It didn't exactly make sense, but it didn't matter and he ignored the hope that seemed to flutter inside of his stomach as a result of the news. He took another sip of his beverage to kill those damn butterflies before he mocked, "What, you get a new lease on life and decide he's no longer worthy enough for you?" The statement had come out a little harsher than he had intended, but he couldn't take it back now.

Elena knew what he was doing; what he _always_ did. But she needed to get this thing between them straightened out and she couldn't handle his deflective sarcasm tonight. There was pleading in her voice as she released a heavy sigh and shouted, "Damon, can you please just look at me! I came here for a reason."

Damon finally turned to look at the girl for the first time since her transformation. He ignored the stab of desire as he took in her flawless figure, realizing that becoming a vampire had made her even more irresistable, and sighed. "I know why you came here, Elena. And truth be told, I'm just really not in the mood to get into it now with you. I've had stakes driven into parts of my body I didn't know stakes could go through. I'm tired and I've dealt with enough for one day without you storming in here to rip me a new one."

She kept her voice light as she countered, "I hardly call this storming in and ripping you a new one."

Damon rolled his eyes as he threw his hands up in the air in defeat. "Fine, I exaggerated a bit. Stake me."

Instead of continuing their pointless back and forth, Elena blurted out the question that had been begging to be asked. "Why did you do it?"

The inevitable question Damon had known was coming. There was no point in lying to her anymore. They had always shared a connection; always knew what the other was saying and how the other felt without having to speak it out loud. As a vampire, her senses were only heightened so it made no sense in trying to fool her. "Because it was the selfless thing to do."

Elena shook her head back and forth as she refuted, "But you're not selfless."

"Evidently I am when it concerns you." He appeared disgusted at himself as he took another drink of the dwindling scotch remaining in his glass.

"But why?" She already knew the reason why, but she needed him to say it. Otherwise it almost didn't seem real.

"Jesus, what's with the twenty questions, Elena? What do you want from me?" Damon twisted around and threw the near empty glass of alcohol into the fire. It smashed into a thousand tiny pieces, similar to the way Damon's heart had been time and time again. He had been expecting Elena for hours, but now that she was here, he wasn't ready to tackle the big elephant in the room. It just hurt too damn much to face it head on.

Elena waited until Damon had gotten the anger out of his system before she answered, "The truth; something you stole from me that night."

Within a second he was standing directly in front of her. Damon knew that Elena could see the painful hatred radiating from his eyes, but he didn't care. She was the reason it was there in the first place and it was time she realized it. "You want me to pour my heart out to you? Is that what you want?" He then took a step back as he stated, "Well sorry to burst your optimistic bubble, but it's not going to happen."

She couldn't handle it anymore. She had come here for a reason, but she couldn't resolve anything with Damon behaving in his typical manner. Her frustration boiled over the surface as she screamed, "Stop doing that!"

Damon let out an irritated huff and made his way back to the fireplace before he turned back around. "Stop doing what exactly, Elena? This is what we do. You push and I push back. It's what makes us, well… us."

There was pleading in her eyes and her voice was still slightly elevated as she suggested, "But it doesn't have to define us."

"You've always been fine with that in the past." He said the statement so matter-of-factly that the truth behind it almost didn't affect him; _almost_.

Elena couldn't ignore the stab of guilt that crept into her chest. For the first time since they'd known each other, Elena understood for certain how Damon felt towards her, but honestly, she had always known. She had repeatedly used his feelings for her against him to push him in the right direction; to be a better man. And he'd actually made progress. But now she was ready to embrace why she had pushed him so hard. Because frankly, it hadn't solely been for his benefit; it had also been for hers.

She knew it had been selfish and entirely too Katherine, but despite the fact that Stefan had been her safer bet, she wanted Damon as well. She just wasn't ready to accept him the way he was. Her human self had needed him to be good before she opened herself up to the possibility of actually succumbing to her desires.

And as a result of her selfishness, they had managed to hurt each other irrevocably. Somehow the pain they inflicted on the other had become a form of a game; a tit for a tat you might say. And in the process it had formed an even stronger connection than the one they previously shared. Pain had somehow become their means of evoking feeling from the other and while it wasn't exactly the greatest feeling in the world, it had been powerful.

Looking back, Elena wasn't sure which one had managed to evoke more pain from the other, but she was ready to yield that powerful connection in a new direction. In the light of her new life she now had the strength and will to experience happiness with him because if their negative connection had been that strong, she could only imagine how resilient a positive one would be. The effects held the possibility of forming something overwhelmingly spectacular.

She had realized all of these things on her trip over here and after her sudden mental recap she found herself ready to achieve what she had come here to do. Elena held her head up strong and kept the determination in her eyes as she began to fight for what she wanted. "That's because I wasn't a vampire in the past."

Damon stared at her with his electric blue eyes and refuted, "And what does being a vampire have to do with anything?"

Becoming frustrated, Elena threw her arms into the air for a more dramatic effect as she explained, "You know exactly how it relates to everything. All of my emotions and all of my desires have somehow switched into overdrive. I'm experiencing things that I didn't understand before. For once in the past two years, I know exactly what I want and I'm not afraid to accept it anymore."

There was fire behind his eyes as he shouted, "And do you really think that after all of this time I'd still be pining for you eager and ready to open my arms because you've finally realized that I was the better choice?" Of course he still wanted her, more than anything else in this pathetic world, but she had sucked him completely dry. She had managed to wring his heart out in between her tiny fingers time and time again so no passion was left at all. It appeared that after all of this time she was finally ready to accept him for who he was, but now Damon wasn't sure he had anything else to offer.

Ignoring his outburst, Elena responded confidently, "I know it."

She had always been stubborn, so her response had come as no surprise to Damon. He narrowed his eyes as he asked, "And how can you be so certain?"

She took a step towards him as she responded, "You stepped in front of me to block Klaus' attack."

Truth was he would give anything for this girl. He would sacrifice himself many time overs to ensure her safety. She could have all of him, every bit of him, until it all ran out. But despite the fact that she finally knew the truth, he didn't want her to see how invested in this, in her, he had truly become. It was pathetic.

"I've taken arrows in my back for you before." He shrugged his shoulders and added, "So big deal; I was feeling heroic."

She took another step toward him and tried again, "You gave me your blood before we went down into that tomb."

Damon rolled his eyes and countered, "I knew Stefan wouldn't do it and one of us needed to force an insurance policy on you in case you did something stupid, which I obviously knew you would." To his relief, he had managed to leave out the part where he couldn't imagine living this soulless life without her in it.

She motioned towards his side as she took another step forward. "Your finger keeps twitching against your side. Something you do when you're nervous."

Damon stuck his hand in his pocket, but remained firmly in the same place as he retorted, "I'm never nervous, Elena. And besides, I was staked three times today. I think I'm allowed to be a tid bit jittery afterwards."

She took one last step so that her face rested inches from his. She felt his cool breathe against her skin as her eyes attempted to stare directly into the piercing blue of his. A slightly confident smile spread across her face as she accused, "Your eyes haven't left my lips since two steps ago and the subtle glint in them reveals exactly how much you're anticipating the feeling of them against yours. You're remembering the last time they touched mine and the difference it will be now that mine will actually respond by moving in unison with yours."

Damon cocked his head to the side and lifted his hand to take a strand of her chestnut hair in between his fingers. He ran his fingertips down the satin strands all the way to their tips before finally releasing them. The intimate moment had Elena caught in suspension until she realized he was toying with her the same way he always did.

Damon's eyes refocused on Elena's as he finally argued, "I'm a vampire with a very active libido. It's comes with the transition, which is exactly the reason you can't seem to keep your eyes from drifting over my chest. You're just horny, Elena. It'll die down in time along with your hunger."

Elena honestly felt no surge of hunger, so his statement had caught her off guard. The only urge she felt was for Damon, but it wasn't just for his body. Of course she wanted that, but she wanted the rest of him too.

She was irritated and finished with the back and forth, but instead of the exhaustion she typically experienced from yielding no results, her new vampire body only supplied her with more strength to keep fighting. She inched her face closer to his as she stated, "I don't just want to have sex with you."

His signature smirk placed itself across Damon's face as he tapped his fingertips along the top of her head. "You don't know what you want! Everything is a magnified jumbled mess inside of your pretty little head right now."

Elena refused to accept his response. Her head was in the most heightened state it had ever been, but nothing was a mess. Everything she was feeling made perfect sense because while it had been Stefan that had restarted her heart after the death of her parents, Damon had somehow become the one that it continued beating for; figuratively speaking now of course.

Elena lifted her hands to grasp onto the side of his face for support and before her statement had left her lips, she knew it was true. "For the first time in my life, everything is crystal clear."

Damon had been longing to have Elena finally realize their connection, but he hadn't wanted it like this. He had been through the transition before, so he knew exactly what Elena was going through. Despite what she believed, her emotions would eventually die down and she'd get a handle on this life. She'd realize that while she did in fact have feelings for both of them, that her feelings for Stefan were greater. Stefan would still be waiting for her and she'd run back to him leaving his heart in tattered bits once again. And he simply couldn't handle it.

So ignoring his overwhelming need to take her in his arms, Damon slowly removed her hands from his face. He kept his eyes away from the penetrating stare of hers and his voice was barely above a whisper as he muttered, "It's not as crystal as you think. Please just go before we both say something we'll regret in the morning."

Elena threw her arms against her side and huffed. "Jesus, Damon. You're not the better choice. Is that what you wanted to hear? Does it make you feel better to continue wallowing in your own self-pity?"

His emotions were entirely too heavy to deal with her anymore. Keeping his attention on the floor he deadpanned, "Tons. Thanks for the compliment."

Elena felt the liquid begin to form in the corners of her eyes, but she blinked it back. She wasn't breaking through and it was irking the hell out of her. She had no idea what she needed to accomplish in order to make Damon see the truth behind what she was confessing.

But in one last attempt, she decided to just let it all go; unload everything onto him. She grabbed onto his chin and forced him to look directly at her as she explained, "Don't you understand, you're not the better choice because you're the only one. It's you, it has been for so long now. I was just too blind and scared by what I thought was right for me to actually accept it. I know I've hurt you and you've hurt me in response, but I don't want to feel through pain anymore. I love you, Damon. That is the only feeling I want to embrace right now and I'm almost positive the same stands for you too. You just have to let us."

As Damon listened to her words, he felt his previous reservations drift away. He had always been unable to refuse Elena of what she truly wanted and right now that was him. He had dealt with the pain of having her around and just slightly beyond his reach for too long. He wanted this more than anything and Damon wasn't sure if forever was in their future, but for right now she was his and that was all that mattered.

Damon felt himself surrendering as the corners of his lips lifted into a pleased smile. He lowered himself down to her level and whispered, "Fine, you win. We'll give this… us, a try."

Elena pushed her lips into a pout and Damon noticed that all of her previous confidence had faded as she weakly stated, "I'm tired of the games, Damon, and that's not what I wanted this to be. This is real; you and me. It's not something that's going to fade now that it's suddenly been confronted. You know that right?"

Realizing that in that moment he truly did, Damon placed his hand on both sides of her face and penetrated into her chocolate brown eyes as he finally confessed, "I love you, Elena. I've waited so long for this moment; for you to look at me the way you are now. I can see it in your eyes… I know it's real."

His heart-wrenching signature smirk then slashed its way across his face as he playfully ordered, "Now shut up so we can enjoy the moment."

Damon then finally brought his lips crashing against her more than eager ones and Elena found the moment entirely too monumental to spoil it with more words. So instead she wrapped her arms tightly around the back of his neck and desperately clung to him as she let the memories of her human heart disappear.

* * *

**_Please Read and Review! :)_**


End file.
